


Lost Luggage and Lost Souls

by Nemo_the_Everbeing



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Attempted Rape, Gen, Hostage Situation, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemo_the_Everbeing/pseuds/Nemo_the_Everbeing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because listing bus stations as something you hate just begs writers to put you there.  The Seventh Doctor and Ace join an odd cast of characters in time to get held hostage, and the Doctor remembers why he prefers saving worlds to smaller crises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mike Pearson was picking his teeth.  The day was hot and humid, and his shirt was sticking to his back where the vinyl of his chair trapped all the sweat.  The Greyhound station smelled like too many people and the gasoline stench from outside wafted in every time someone opened the door.  He glanced at the computer screen.  Five more seats and an hour and forty-five more minutes left for the bus to St. Louis.  Then he could go to Hardees on his lunch break and see if that girl working the drive-thru was single.

 

The station was full up with the usual grab-bag of weirdoes.  There were the old bikers who didn't want to travel that far on a motorcycle, the hippies who didn't have cars, the old ladies whose licenses had been revoked.  Then there were the vets, the students, the trailer trash, and one mother with small children.  She had a black eye, and Mike didn't doubt she was running from some man.  He saw that type two or three times a month.  All his weirdoes were people who needed to get somewhere and had no other means by which to do so.  Lord only knew that no one would be on a Greyhound out of Iowa City if they had any other alternative.

 

The station wasn't large.  The building itself had probably been put up when Greyhound started and no one had ever bothered with upkeep.  They couldn't afford to.  Nobody took ground-based, long-range public transit anymore.  They either had their own cars or they took a plane.  The day of the bus and the train was long past, even with the rising gas costs.  Mike stuck around, though, because there were always people who'd be too cheap, too poor, or just wanted that Greyhound experience.

 

An hour and a half to the bus' arrival and another pair entered the station.  Mike, who didn't get surprised by just anyone, still felt a lurch of shock somewhere around his gut.  He stopped picking his teeth and set his toothpick on the counter to facilitate his staring.

 

They were just about the craziest pair of nuts he'd ever seen.  The girl, who couldn't be older than twenty, stood there in a tight red tank top, a black pleated skirt, black tights, and black combat boots.  He'd call her a Goth, but she wasn't wearing the makeup, and the skirt and tights were all wrong.  Not enough chains and safety-pins and too much sincerity.  More like something he remembered from his own High School days back when all the unpopular, tough girls were wearing things like that with oversize t-shirts.  The shirt was maybe something he saw more often in the station these days, but everything from the waist down was older.  Maybe the eighties thing was back in fashion.  Not like he paid attention to what people were wearing, but she was hard to ignore.  Pretty little girl.  Probably legal, but maybe not. 

 

The man with her was even stranger.  He was wearing plaid pants, a brown suit jacket, and some sort of sweater-vest covered in little red question marks.  His umbrella, too, had a red question mark handle, and Mike wondered why he was carrying an umbrella when the sky didn't have a cloud in it.  His black hair stuck up in odd angles, and he barely stood taller than the girl. 

 

He'd seen weirdoes before, but there was something that set this guy apart.  Something about his eyes.  They glimmered steel-blue and seemed full of life, sparkling with some sort of inner light.  At the same time they seemed flat like a hawk's eyes, and the way he looked at the other passengers told of differences between them that Mike couldn't even guess at.  He felt a gulf stretch out between the little man and everyone else, and the girl was the only person who could cross.

 

Mike wondered what they were to one another.  He'd seen the gamut in his time.  Maybe they were relatives, and the little guy was too cheap to spring for gas money.  Maybe she was footing the bill and taking her crazy uncle to an asylum somewhere.  Then again, it was just as likely that they were eloping or something.  He shook his head.  If a girl like that could fall for a man like him, there might be hope for Mike yet.

 

In one of the chairs near the door, a guy in a badly-fitting suit shifted and watched the two, leaning over to the woman sitting next to him.  They whispered to one another.  Mike felt a flutter of excitement.  Definitely cops, those two, and from the way they were looking, they'd jumped straight to Mike's eloping conclusion, and also that she might or might not be legal.  If she wasn't legal, well, there was still an hour and a half to go before the bus arrived, and even the cops were bored.

 

The two got to the ticket window and Mike asked, "What can I do you for?"

 

"Two tickets, please," the little man said, "for the three o'clock to St. Louis."

 

The way he talked, he was some sort of British guy.  Not like Hugh Grant or those others, though.  No, that accent was like the lovechild of Hugh Grant and Braveheart, all rolling r's and polite vowels.

 

"I don't see why we have to take a bus in the first place, Professor," the girl said.  British too, but not the same accent.  "The TARDIS could have got us there in a fraction of the time it’ll take this heap."

 

"The scenic route, Ace," the Professor said.

 

Ace rolled her eyes.  "This is some scenery I could just as soon do without."

 

"A hundred-forty-two dollars," Mike said.  "And ID."

 

"What?" Ace asked, disbelief on her face.  "Professor, this is daylight robbery!"

 

The Professor didn't seem surprised or upset.  "Inflation.  Prices change."  He started digging through numerous pockets in his pants and jacket, flashing a pocket-watch, a white paper bag filled with what Mike assumed to be drugs but, at a second glance, appeared to be gummy-bears or something.  Then there was a yo-yo, a pair of spoons, a tennis ball, and at last, right when Mike was beginning to contemplate just kicking the nutty pair out of his bus station, the little man produced a pouch.  He dumped it on the counter, scattering currencies from a dozen different countries, most of which Mike couldn't even begin to figure out, plus one weird-looking metal beetle, all over the counter.  He grabbed a bundle of bills and Ace got the job of scooping the rest of the coins back into the purse.  Maybe she was with him because he was some millionaire.  Lots of girls seemed to be doing that.

 

The Professor laid out one hundred-dollar bill, two twenties, and two ones, and looked very pleased with himself.

 

"ID," Mike said.

 

The little guy seemed flustered, and dug through his pockets again.  Finally, he pulled out a laminated card.  It was old and battered.  He slipped it through the ticket window, and Mike got a good look at it.

 

It was an ID card, all right, for something called UNIT.  Stupid name, Mike thought, but then again, a lot of companies nowadays were coming up with stupid names.  The picture was right, and the name was Dr. John Smith.  If he had wanted, Mike could have pressed about the name.  After all, who really names their kids John Smith?  But he'd let far less savory types ride his bus, and as long as security was followed, he didn't really care if it was that rigorous.  He slid the ID back to Dr. Smith with two tickets.

 

Ace muttered, "A hundred some dollars for a bus ride?  Definitely not worth it."

 

"Thanks and have a nice ride," Mike said, the litany so familiar that it no longer required thought.

 

"Thank you," Dr. Smith said.  Then he turned to Ace and gestured to two chairs next to the mother with the back eye.  There was another weird thing about him: with all the empty seats in the station, why would he volunteer to sit right next to someone?  Everyone always put at least a chair between them and anyone else.  "Shall we?" he offered.

 

Ace fought, and failed, to keep a smile off her face.  "Whatever you say, Professor," she said.  "You're the one with the master plan that involves us riding a bus to St. Louis."  He made for the seats and she followed, and as they went, Mike caught her saying, "I thought you told me you hated bus stations."

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

"So, most likely felon," Thomson said, leaning back in the uncomfortable orange vinyl seat.  She grunted at him, not buying into this game for a second.  As soon as she engaged in conversation with the bastard, he always tried to hit on her.  Sometimes it was funny, but she wasn’t in the mood.  "Come on, Jimenez,” he said.  “Humor me."

 

Jimenez didn't glance up from her book.  "You forgot your portable TV, didn't you?" she asked. 

 

"Ran out of batteries," he said.  "I left it in my desk."

 

"Stopopolis’ll steal it on his shift."

 

"If he replaces the batteries, he can do whatever he wants with it," he said.  "So, come on.  Felons."

 

She glanced up and scanned the room.  Finally, she nodded at one of the bikers down their row.  "Him," she said.  "He moves like he's done time."

 

"Oh, he's too easy," Thomson said.  He nodded across the way and, reluctantly, she followed his nod.  There, standing at the ticket window, were an odd pair.  "Him," Thomson said.

 

Jimenez snorted.  "What, the tiny little guy with the umbrella?  Insanity plea, maybe, but a felon?  How do you figure?"

 

"Statutory rape," Thomson said, sounding smug.

 

"Even if that's the case, which I doubt—"

 

"And why is that?"

 

"Body language is wrong.  And she's older than eighteen," she said, went back to her book, and hoped that would be the end of it.  Thomson was on a crude kick again, probably just to see if he couldn’t get a rise out if her.

 

"How can you be sure?" he asked.  "I look at her and I figure anywhere between sixteen and twenty-one, and two of those years makes whatever they might be doing behind closed doors very, very illegal."

 

"What if they're related?"

 

“Then fifteen to twenty becomes twenty-five to life.”

 

“You know what I meant.”

 

"Oh, come on.  Do they look anything alike to you?" he asked.  "Not a chance.  So, older man and younger woman traveling together, alone . . . are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?"

 

"If you're trying to take over the world, I'm leading the resistance," she said.  "Stupidity must be fought."

 

"You're just sore because you know they aren't related, and maybe to you that body language says 'we're just friends' but to me it's adding 'until the lights go out.'"

 

"You've got a sick mind, you know that?"

 

"I've got a cop's mind."

 

"A paranoiac's mind."

 

"A brilliant mind."

 

"A mind that needs distraction and is willing to slander two perfectly innocent people all for its own lurid fantasies."

 

"Ouch."

 

"And don't you forget it."

 

"Okay, but if he's not doing her, then why are they together?  I mean, I'm not seeing much in common."

 

Jimenez glanced at them once more.  "They move the same way," she said.

 

"Is this more of that body language thing?  Because that's going right over my head."

 

"Most things do."

 

"So, if they move alike, wouldn't it make sense if they were—"

 

"Look, can we leave the shop talk for the office?  Or at least until we get to the SLPD?"  She glanced at her watch.  It wasn't like Thomson was a bad partner, but he was really only fun in small doses, and the prospect of a weekend digging through records and talking to the SLPD about a series of disappearances wasn't exactly her idea of a great time.  At least the department was springing for two rooms.  She didn't want to imagine a night alone with Thomson trying to catch a glimpse of her panties.

 

"Maybe he kidnapped her," Thomson said.

 

Jimenez shut her book with a snap.  "Give it a rest, okay?"

 

"I'm just saying . . ."

 

"Does she look like she's being held against her will?  No.  Does she have that shell-shock you sometimes see in kidnap victims?  No.  Are we Special Victims detectives?  No.  So, why are you fixating on them?"

 

"Because they're the weirdest in a weird bunch," Thomson said.  "And because I don't have my portable TV."

 

Jimenez dug into her duffel and pulled out a book.  "Look," she said, "it's Tom Clancy.  Everybody likes Tom Clancy."  She threw it at him.  "Read it and stop obsessing over our fellow passengers before they get the wrong impression and start thinking you're checking them out."

 

Thomson picked up the book from his lap and opened it.  Then, he glanced over the top of the cover and said, "Maybe she kidnapped him."

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

Judy McClellen sat in her seat, fidgeting and staring at her children.  The baby had just gone to sleep at long last, and Zoe, sitting on the floor, was more or less occupied with a coloring book.  The quieter they were, in Judy's opinion, the better.

 

This wasn't the usual sort of trip for them, so the rules changed.  Any noise from any of them might alert someone they were there.  Lord only knew that Gary had friends all over the town of Lone Tree, and any one of them could have seen Judy driving away.  Even now, Gary might be following in her footsteps.  He might find the car in the Wal-Mart parking lot, might track down the Gypsy Cab they'd taken to the station.  He might walk through the door at any moment, and she didn't know if she'd have the strength to leave him again.  This time was hard enough.

 

She didn't have any money.  She had two kids.  She was riding at least to St. Louis and maybe further.  All Judy really wanted was some out-of-the-way little town where she could start over; maybe erase some of the past that was dogging her.  She reached up and touched her black eye.  Yes, indeed, this was a place she needed to leave right away if she wanted to save herself or her kids.  When you're some poor white-trash girl in a town where your husband is loved by all, then he can slap you around and people will turn a blind eye.  They blamed Judy for the marriage anyway.  If she hadn't been a slut and gotten herself pregnant, then Gary could have gone on to do great things.  Everyone was very eager to remind her of that one.  So if he hit her, well, people figured she'd had it coming for a while.

 

Judy had put up with it for six years.  She'd been good and obedient and took everything he dished out.  But in the end, Judy McClellen couldn't take another day of getting smacked around and then being told it was her own damn fault.  She was running.

 

If only she knew where she was running to or how long her little cash would last.  Most of it got sucked up by the bus tickets already.  How they would eat wherever they were going, Judy really didn't know.  The only thing that convinced her that life wherever she ended up would be any better than Lone Tree was because it had to be.  You couldn't fall out of a hole.

 

A man sat down beside her and Judy almost jumped, thinking for a second that it was Gary come to drag her back home.  But no.  This man was much smaller and more colorful than Gary had ever been.  He turned to her and said, "Hello."

 

"Hi," she said, her voice almost failing.  What if Gary sent him?  He didn't look like the type Gary would be friends with, but who knew?

 

Zoe looked up and stared at the man, her eyes wide.  "Mommy," she said, "is that Santa Claus?"

 

The little man laughed, delighted.  Next to him, a girl chuckled.  She hadn't been there a moment ago, and Judy supposed she must be with the strange little man.  Judy tried to understand why her daughter would ask that question.  The man didn't have white hair or a beard.  He wasn't fat.  Still, there was something about his manner that Zoe must have picked up on.  She had always been good at that sort of intuition thing.

 

"I'm afraid not," the man said, and Judy realized he was Scottish.  Strange.  You didn't see many foreigners in Lone Tree, and in Iowa City most foreigners belonged to the student population at the university.  This man might teach there, but somehow Judy doubted it.  "However," he held out his hand, showed both sides to demonstrate that there was nothing in it, and then flipped it palm up to reveal a small gummy candy, "I think I could manage a jelly baby or two."  His eyes, a strange shade of grayish-blue, flashed up to meet hers.  "If that's all right with you, of course."

 

Judy realized she should say no.  Accepting candy from strangers, especially strange men with weird clothes and Scottish accents, was just the sort of thing her parents always used to harp on her about.  Yet she looked at this man and something in her was utterly certain he wouldn't hurt her or her daughter.

 

Zoe, too, was convinced, and snagged the candy before Judy could say anything.  Zoe remembered to say, "Thank you," then sat down and began to nibble at the so-called jelly baby.

 

The little man produced a paper bag full of the candies, holding it out to Judy.  "Would you like one, as well?" he asked.

 

Judy took a candy. 

 

Zoe was still staring at the little man, her attention completely diverted from the coloring book.  "Are you magic?" she asked.

 

The little man hopped out of his seat and dropped down in front of Zoe.  "That really depends," he said, "on what you think magic is."

 

"It's tricks and stuff."

 

"Well, then everyone is magic, because anyone can learn tricks.  The secret to performing real magic is doing the formerly impossible."  With a flip of his wrist, he produced a pocket handkerchief and proceeded to lengthen it and then make it disappear, all the while talking to Zoe in a very light, yet still serious tone.  "After all, nothing's really impossible if you think about it.  Somewhere, somewhen, someone must have done it at least once."

 

"Somewhen?" Zoe asked.

 

"Oh, yes.  You see, time," he turned the handkerchief into a pocket watch, "changes depending on how you look at it, and is much like space in many matters.  You can map time, and for humanity, the future is the greatest unexplored country in existence.  It cannot be known until it’s experienced."

 

He continued to prattle and do little magic tricks, keeping Zoe entertained and, even more important, quiet.  For a second, the little man flashed Judy a look, and she felt that he had all this planned out from the second he saw her and her children.  For a second, Judy was certain that, even though his lips didn't move, he said to her, "You made the right decision.  You will find the peace you're looking for."

 

She sat there, shaken, as he went right on producing coins from her daughter's ear and chattering away about time.

 

The girl who had been sitting next to him shifted over to sit next to Judy.  She looked about twenty, and there was something sharp about her.  Something that spoke of a lot of hard living in that short amount of time.  Yet there was also a sort of happiness and peace that seemed more recent.  Judy wondered if maybe she'd look like that when she got where she was going, too.  The girl nodded toward the little man and Zoe.  "He's good with kids," she said.  "Funny, that, since he doesn't really spend any time around them."  The girl offered her hand.  "I'm Ace."

 

Judy liked Ace.  She couldn't help it.  Ace was the kind of girl she'd been at twenty, but with a little something extra that Judy couldn't put her finger on.  "Judy," she said.

 

"Glad to meet you," Ace said.

 

Zoe laughed and Judy turned just in time to see her daughter produce a coin from her own ear.  Her technique was poor, but the little man was excitedly showing her how to hide it better.  Across from them, in another line of seats, the little man had drawn an audience of students from the University.  None of them looked as though they knew who he was, and a character like this would stand out even in a big college town.  So definitely not with the university, then.  If not there, Judy wondered, where did he come from?

 

"Who is he?" she asked.

 

Ace didn't take her eyes from the little man.  "He's the Doctor," she said, as though that explained it all.

 

"He doesn't teach at the University, does he?"

 

Ace shook her head.

 

"Is he your father?"

 

Ace laughed.  "The Professor?" she asked.  "God, no!  He's . . . he's my best mate.  I travel with him."

 

"Travel?" Judy asked.  "Where?"

 

"Oh, everywhere," Ace said.  "All over the place, really."

 

"How'd you end up at Iowa City?"

 

"Passing through, same as you," Ace said, and nodded to the suitcases huddled together near Judy's seat.

 

Zoe succeeded in producing the coin without showing the trick.  The little man clapped, then took the coin, made it disappear, made it come back as three, and then began to juggle them.  Ace's face split into a wide, surprisingly young, grin.  "Oi, Professor," she called, "don't pull out the spoons, all right?"

 

Still juggling, the Doctor looked over his shoulder and said, "You've no ear for music, Ace."

 

"Yes, I do.  That's the problem."  There was a strange, assured kind of teasing between them, as though they'd had variations on this conversation a thousand times, and now it was mostly repeated for entertainment value.  "My musical ears bleed every time you feel the urge to play."

 

He tossed the coins higher, their arc sailing perfectly, despite the fact he hadn't glanced at them the entire conversation.  "How, precisely, do you intend to stop me?" he asked, all prim determination.

 

"Oh, I'll fight you," she said.  "I remember which pocket they went into."

 

"Ah, but are they still there?  They might have moved.  Space is relative, after all.  And I might have transdimensional pockets."

 

Ace rolled her eyes, but there was no real frustration there.  "Professor . . ." she said.

 

"All right," he said.  "No spoons, I promise."

 

One of the coins went wide of its normal arc, and Zoe squealed.  Quick as a snake, the Doctor had turned around, shot his hand out, and caught the coin, sending it back into the proper orbit.  There was scattered applause from the students.

 

Ace settled back.

 

Judy watched her and worked up the courage to ask, "Is he your boyfriend?"  It was an odd question to ask.  Sensitive, probably.  The age difference alone would make for a controversial relationship.  Then again, what did she know about love, anyway?  A black eye and a few suitcases, that's what.

 

Ace snorted, but the sound was almost wistful.  There was a great deal unsaid in that snort, and Judy couldn't tell what any of it was.  "No," Ace said.  "Never happen."  Judy waited and after a second, Ace continued quietly, more to herself.  "He's so brilliant in some ways, so clever, but in others . . . he's the great innocent of the universe.  It'd be some huge wrong, you know, to shatter something like that."  Her eyes were distant—different places, different times.  "Maybe it's him, how he is.  Then again, maybe they're all like that.  Maybe they're built to last, and one of those basic things that makes you burn out too quick is falling in love.  So that part's gone.  Woven out, or however they do it."

 

Judy didn't understand.  Then again, she didn't feel that she was supposed to.

 

On the floor, Judy heard the little man say, "I'm the Doctor."

 

"I'm Zoe," the little girl said, flipping a single coin through the air in a stuttered imitation of the Doctor's artful juggling. 

 

A sudden, almost shocking spasm of sorrow passed over the Doctor's face, but it seemed just as at home there as the joy had been.  Maybe more so.  Maybe, even while he was happy, his eyes held the remnants of that sorrow.  It was a sorrow so old it made Judy shiver and wonder, again, just who this Doctor was.  "I used to know a Zoe," he said.  "Brilliant girl . . ."  Then, as suddenly as it had come, the sorrow was gone and he grinned.  "She was an astronaut, you know."

 

Zoe's eyes were wide and serious.  She looked at the Doctor with those eyes and said, "You're not Santa Claus.  You're Father Time." 

 

And for the first time since Judy had met him, the Doctor fell utterly silent.  She wanted to explain that Zoe had just watched a little too much "Charlotte's Web," but the words stuck in her throat as she heard Ace's surprised little breath.

 

Across the way, the students seemed to wonder what had happened.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

Jessica Moritz sat huddled in her seat, picking idly at the edge of her spike-studded dog collar.  Her dyed black hair hung lank in her face and her thick black eyeliner made her eyes seem bigger and darker than they already were.  Her lips were a deep blood red, as were her fingernails, and a leather corset was laced snugly up above her ratty jeans and Converse All Stars.  She was tough and hard as nails, and she'd tell anyone who crossed her just that.  She'd worked too hard to get into college and out of her former life to get intimidated by all the upperclassmen now, so her clothes, her makeup, her hair, they were her armor.

 

Sometimes, though, she'd look into the mirror and realize just how horribly young it all made her look.  Little girl dressed up for a war she’d left years ago, a war she’d ended by selling her friends to the enemy.  Cindy, Delilah, Monique, Ambrosia, they were all dead now.  She’d talked, and they’d died, and somewhere along the line most of her had learned not to care.  If she didn’t look out for Jessica, there wasn’t a soul out there who would.

 

She peered at the man sitting on the floor.  He seemed like everything she wasn't.  A bright, shiny, garish light to her darkness.  Maybe she was flattering herself.  There was something so much brighter about him, something that made her darkness feel superficial.  She generally considered herself wise beyond her years, an old soul, but this man . . . he was ancient.  For a second (she couldn't hear the conversation, so she didn't know why), he'd stopped shining quite so bright, his Scottish prattle falling silent and a tight, worried look shuddering across his face.  The light seemed to collapse, revealing something so deep and so black about him that Jessica drew up her knees to her chest and hugged the worn denim tightly. 

 

Then, the darkness was gone, and the man was showing the little girl sitting opposite him how to juggle. 

 

Maybe he was a circus act.  Maybe he was some kind of nut.  Maybe he was a mad scientist or a comic book villain or maybe he was just an eccentric man who traveled around with college girls, and Jess had spent too much time waiting for the bus to take her back to St. Louis for the last time. 

 

Jessica pulled her eyes away from the little man, feigning disinterest.  She picked up her book of poetry and began to read:

 

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

  
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

  
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

  
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew -

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

 

Her eyes skipped once more over to the little man.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

Tim Ross could care less about the little man or his daughter.  Just another pair on another ride.  He was sure he'd seen stranger across the years. 

 

The cops had already spotted him.  They sat down his row a ways, but their attention passed on soon enough.  He was getting too old to hold their interest for more than a once-over.  That self-assured cop deduction told them he'd been in jail at least once, but it was a while ago, and he was all used up now.

 

He hated being trapped with so many people in one space.  Especially a bus.  There was something about buses, something degrading, which told Tim that when he rode on one, he was lessened.  Tim felt like an eagle with its wings clipped.  Evocative image, that.  If he were younger, he might even get it tattooed on his arm.  Nowadays, though, his skin was wrinkling and the ink didn't take right.  The world was spinning forward and dragging Tim along with it and there wasn't a damn thing he could do. 

 

Out on the highway, with the wind whipping through his long gray hair and plaited beard, Tim was still young.  He could still fly on the road, and all the scars he bore showed that he wasn't some cowering little old man holed up in some Godforsaken nursing home.  Tim Ross would ride until the day he died, and then if there was a Heaven, he'd keep on riding there if they'd let him in.

 

Not many delusions about that, though.  Tim was no saint.  Over the years, he'd been in more than one fight, even killed a man here and there.  He had his own set of ethics, though, and they were as rigid as any religion.  He'd never raised his hand to a woman, never even raised his voice.  He wouldn’t kill a man unless that man left him no other alternative or if that man deserved to die.

 

He'd spent fifteen years in prison for killing a man who deserved to die.  The man molested a girl, a friend of his daughter's.  Things had to be done.  Evil had to be fought, and Tim Ross was such a man as to fight evil.

 

Fifteen years later and his little girl was all grown up and married to some insurance salesman in St. Louis.  Her mother's doing, no doubt.  Still, his daughter grew up clean: no drugs, no booze, no sleeping around, so he couldn't blame Bonnie for much.  She'd done what she'd had to do.  They all had.

 

Now he was finally going to see his baby girl, to wish her well and bring her the wedding present he'd waited to give.  He was bringing her his own grandmother's diamond ring.  Such an old, fragile thing it looked lying in his big, callused palm, but it was the only and best thing he could give his daughter.  The only real blessing he had left in him.

 

There he sat in a room full of people waiting to take a bus.  His Goddamn hip had gone out a few days ago, and he couldn't ride.  His age was finally catching up to him, clipping his wings, forcing him to travel like other men instead of flying along on his chopper, the Avenging Angel returned to protect those who needed it.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

It was roughly at this time, as various people sat and talked and thought various things, that the door opened and five men carrying hunting rifles and handguns walked in.

 

"Well, Hell," Mike said, right before he got shot.


	2. Chapter 2

Tim was on his feet before the man behind the counter hit the ground.  He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do against five armed men, but he'd be damned if they were keeping him from his daughter.  Not today of all days.

 

He strode forward.  He remembered a time when men quailed just because of his stride, his stance, but anymore, the men with the guns didn't even seem to notice.  Well, too bad for them.  He could take them from behind.

 

Right when things were going along smooth, one of those sons of bitches spotted him coming.  The man swung around, and Tim thought about his little girl, how he'd never get to see her face when he gave her his grandmother's ring.

 

Then there, standing right in front of him, was that tiny man and his daughter.  He had stepped in a bullet's path for Tim, but it didn't look like he was aiming to get shot.  No, the man was talking a mile a minute.  "I'm a doctor," he said, holding his hands up.  "I need to see the man you shot.  It's possible he's still alive, and you know as well as I do that assault is a far lesser crime than murder.  Now, you haven't shot anyone else, which leads me to believe that you probably shot that man in order to prevent his pressing some kind of emergency button.  One of you can accompany me, but I do need to see to him."

 

"And the Hell's Angel behind you?  Or the pretty little piece of tail next to you?" one of the men asked.  Tim's nostril's flared.  Cocky attitude, curl to his lip, that boy had to be the leader of this sorry pack.  "Are they doctors too?"

 

The doctor glanced at the girl and edged in front of her.  Tim approved of a man who’d shield a girl with his own self.  Chivalry.  "No doubt this gentleman and my friend were just concerned about me."  He turned and fixed Tim with a gaze like an eagle's, sharp and flat.  Somewhere under that silly exterior there was a predator, Tim realized.  He'd seen enough of them in his time to know.  "If you want to protect someone," he said, his words a quiet, quick patter, "there’s a mother and her two young children down this aisle who must be very frightened right now.  And I would be particularly grateful if you would take Ace with you."

 

The girl at his side shook her head.  "Never happen, Professor.  If you're walking with a gun to your head, there's no way I'm not right by your side."

 

"Ace," the doctor said.

 

The leader cocked his gun.  The doctor hissed his frustration and glared at her.  She stood her ground and the doctor said, "Fine."

 

Tim stood still.  He wanted to help the mother and her children, but at the same time, this Ace girl was reminding him more and more of his own daughter.  At least the way he imagined his own daughter would be when he finally saw her.  He didn't want Ace walking into danger with just this doctor for help.  Even with something predatory in him, he just wasn't all that big.  Tim may have been getting on in years, but he was still of a size that men thought twice before crossing him.

 

"Enough with the fucking tea party, already," the leader said.  Of course he needed to swear to make himself feel larger.  Same reason the runt carried a gun.  Tim would never swear in front of ladies, and if he had to kill a man, he sure as hell wasn't going to use the weak man's solution of firearms.  "All three of you are going to get your asses over there and check that guy out before I get bored and shoot him in the face."  The runt walked over and pointed the gun directly between the doctor's eyes.  "And then I'll shoot you in the face and do your 'friend' in front of all these people."

 

The doctor didn't even flinch.  Tim had seen other men piss themselves looking down the barrel of a shotgun, but not the doctor.  He had a look of such deep contempt that even Tim felt it. 

 

The doctor's voice was low, almost a growl, and utterly different from the little man he'd seen teaching some kid to juggle.  He seemed to grow, and a sense of unnamable menace permeated the air around him.  "Why is it you feel the need to point a gun at me or threaten my friend in such a way?  I'm no menace to you.  You're the man with the gun."

 

The runt looked to be the one about to piss himself.  The gun shook in his hands and he was looking at the doctor like the little guy could and would tear him apart.  "That's right," he said, his voice quavering as badly as his gun hands.  You'd best look to that, Son, Tim thought.  "I'm the man with the gun, and I'll use it if you fuck around with me."

 

"Why are you so afraid, Benjamin?" the doctor asked.

 

The man let out a yelp like a kicked dog, but he didn't shoot the doctor.  Instead he swung the gun around and cracked him across the face with its butt.  The doctor was knocked sprawling.

 

"How the hell do you know my name?" asked the runt.  "How the fucking hell did you know my name?"

 

Ace, who had dropped barely a second after the doctor went down, had one hand on his shoulder and a pair of burning brown eyes locked on Ben the Runt.  "It's sewn on your shirt, Toerag," she said.

 

Ben the Runt looked down at his shirt, got even angrier and pulled back a foot like he was going to kick the doctor.  It was time Tim said his piece.  "You don't kick a man while he's down," he said, bending and taking the doctor by an elbow.  He pulled him to his feet with almost no effort.

 

The doctor had a hand on his temple.  It was already showing the greenish-brown birth of a spectacular bruise.  A line along the side of his forehead had caught a corner, and a thin trickle of blood was running down the side of his face.  Straightening his clothing, the doctor made his way toward the ticket booth, Ace at his side, and Tim hovering behind him.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

Thomson watched the tense standoff end with the little felon getting a crack across the face that should have broken his skull.  Nothing doing, though, and the guy got back up and made for the ticket booth.  "Great," Thomson muttered, "we've got a fucking good Samaritan on our hands."

 

"Whereas the police just sit by and watch," Jimenez said. 

 

Thomson had no intention of sitting by and watching, but he couldn't figure out how to get a shot off without a whole lot of people, himself included, getting blown away in the crossfire.  The last thing anyone wanted was a firefight in a bus station.  So Thomson was stuck, angry, frustrated, and lost, watching a hold-up without being able to do anything about it.

 

"Who takes a bus station hostage, anyway?" Jimenez asked, her voice barely a whisper.  "I mean, a bank, sure, but a bus station?  There's no money here, nobody worth holding up . . ."

 

"I've never solved a case through motive," Thomson said.  "No one cares about why, anyway.  That's all for the reporters to make up."

 

Jimenez was shifting around, just a little, but enough that Thomson noticed.  At first, he thought she had to pee, but then he saw her gun disappear behind her seat.  Smart lady, Jimenez.  Thomson shifted around to do the same.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

Tim, Ace, and the doctor (Tim still hadn't caught his name) were all wedged into the ticket booth with a boy who was doing his damndest to bleed to death.  Tim figured this situation couldn't end well; he'd seen enough bullets in his time to guess that, but the doctor was working away nevertheless.  Tim had to admire his persistence if nothing else.

 

"Professor," Ace said, crouched down next to him at the boy's side as the little guy put pressure on the shot with his suit jacket.  "Couldn't you just do that thing you did with my ankle?  You know, during the whole Dalek situation?"

 

The Doctor didn't glance up and didn't let up on the pressure.  "A sprained ankle is a far cry from a gunshot wound, Ace."

 

"Yeah, granted," she said, glancing over at Ben the Runt, who still stood in the door.  He aimed the gun almost casually at her before giving her a once over.  Obviously he had never been taught how to act in front of a lady.  Ace didn't flinch, and her glare sharpened at the implications in that look.  She turned her back on the Runt and dropped her tone.  "That wouldn't seem to matter.  Considering."  Tim wasn't sure what they were considering, but it was a damn sight more interesting than sitting in the waiting room with Ben the Runt and his posse waving guns around. 

 

The doctor shook his head.  "Well, it does," he said.  "A few torn ligaments, even a broken bone is one thing, but the human abdomen is a tricky, delicate place.  More than likely, I would get lost and damage something irreparably."  He applied more pressure as the kid spasmed. 

 

"Doctor!" Ace said, falling gracelessly out of her crouch as the kid splattered blood all over her.

 

The doctor used his free hand to pin the kid, and his face was twisted in agony as he muttered, "I was absolutely rubbish at xenobiology."

 

Tim felt an unease settle over him.  He had a fair to good nose for something being wrong, and there wasn't a thing right about this doctor.  Even the fact that Tim—a suspicious man after so many years of living—trusted him instantly and implicitly was wrong.  He remembered those eagle eyes and took Ace by the arm, helping her up from her sprawl.  Her eyes flashed up to his, gauging his intentions.  After a moment, she let him draw her to one side. 

 

"What is it?" she asked.

 

Tim nodded in the little man's direction.  "Who is he?" he asked.  "Really, who is he?"

 

"Him?" Ace asked, looking over as well.  "He's the Doctor."  Tim knew without asking that this Doctor was the definite article.  He also knew that this name was supposed to possess a good deal of import even if he didn't recognize it.

 

The kid on the floor let out a kind of wet cough.  Blood speckled his face like a smattering of crimson freckles.  Ace broke away from Tim and dropped to her knees, clutching at the Doctor's sleeve.  Tim watched the kid shaking and splattering his blood all over the room.  He knew that nothing short of divine intervention was going to save him now.

 

"He's going to die," Ace said, staring at the Doctor.

 

"Yes, I had noticed that, Ace."

 

"It doesn't matter if you damage him any more!  Just do something!"

 

The Doctor hesitated and then said, "Very well.  Don't let anyone interrupt me."  Tim took the hint and stepped in between the Doctor and Ben the Runt, blocking his view. 

 

The Doctor removed his jacket from the wound.  There was blood everywhere.  He pressed a hand down in the middle of it all, right over the shot.  What he thought he was doing, Tim had no idea, but he watched with interest as the Doctor closed his eyes and just stopped breathing.

 

Tim felt an itching at the back of his head and thought that some spider was running through his hair.  He slapped a hand back, but there was nothing there.  Still the itching persisted, getting worse.  Ace, kneeling next to the Doctor, put a hand to her forehead.  The Doctor himself seemed to have turned into a statue.  He was so still that time itself seemed to slow to a halt around him. 

 

Tim felt the world and everything he knew stretch and fray at the edges as tension built.  The universe didn't like being static.  It didn't like the norm getting all broken up in a single spot.  Just when it seemed that the whole of creation would snap under the stillness, everything yanked itself back into place.  Tim sucked in air.

 

The Doctor's eyes opened and, under the bare bulb in the ticket booth, deep shadows were cast over them.  Their color was leeched away, leaving his previously bright irises a deep and unrelenting black.  For the first time in what seemed an eternity the Doctor drew a breath.  He seemed ancient, almost graven.  Tim had once taken his little girl to an art museum in Chicago, and he'd stared for minutes on end at the statue of an old man in a toga.  The bronze label had said he was some sort of god.  The Doctor brought back that same sensation Tim had felt when he looked into the old god's blank stone eyes.  Tim felt scared and small and so very young.  He felt that the whole of his life was but a pittance, and in all honesty he knew nothing.  The Doctor pulled his hand away from the kid's gut, and through the crusted blood, there was no bullet hole.  Come to think of it, the bruise and cut on the Doctor’s temple were gone, too.  Tim’s own hip had stopped hurting.  For the first time since long before he went to jail, Tim felt his mouth hanging open.  Only divine intervention . . .

 

The kid's eyes opened, and Ace leaned in over him, smiling.  "Morning," she said.  "A bit thirsty, are we?"

 

"What . . ?" the kid croaked out.

 

"Best not to ask these things," Ace said.

 

"You should stay still," the Doctor said, his voice low.  "There's a great deal of delicate work in there."

 

"What did you . . ?" the kid tried again.

 

The Doctor didn't respond, and Ace was already standing and helping him to his feet.  She hovered very close to the Doctor, a worried frown on her face.  "Are you alright?" she asked.

 

He waved her concern away.  It seemed a great effort to even raise his hand.  "I'm fine," he said.  "I'm just a bit tired."

 

Ben the Runt was confused.  Hell, he looked like he was going to piss himself again.  Not that Tim would blame him at this point, but he hadn't actually seen anything.  Tim had stood in the way of the Runt catching a glimpse of the miracle. 

 

Still, there was a kid who'd been shot who wasn't shot any more.  That would need an explanation.  The Doctor, however, wasn't looking to be handing those out any time soon.  He walked to the door with Ace still holding his arm.  Ben the Runt moved aside without a word.

 

Tim made to follow them, but the Doctor turned and said, "Would you stay and look after this young man?  I can see to the woman and her children."

 

Tim did as he was asked without hesitation or question.  After all, when a man stood in the presence of a stone god, the man honored his request.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo 

 

Judy wasn't sure whether to be more frightened or relieved that Gary wasn't one of the men with the guns.  She supposed that everyone on the bus was running from or to something.  Any one of these people could be the real target.  Then again, it might be no one in particular.  It might be that this was random, and she was just keeping up her run of bad luck.

 

Of course, the why of a thing doesn't matter much when a man with a gun is standing not ten feet from you, your eight-year-old daughter, and your three-month-old baby.  A baby who, incidentally, had chosen the worst possible moment to wake up and start screaming.

 

Judy held her close, bouncing her in an effort to calm her down.  She'd gotten lucky this far and the baby had slept well, but a gunshot was too much to ask.  Ace and the Doctor had gone to help the man behind the counter, and she wasn’t sure what to do when the nearest thug started inching his shotgun in their direction.  She concentrated on not looking, on acting as though this were just another in a series of events leading to her new life.  After all, hadn't the Doctor promised she'd find the peace she was looking for?  As odd as he was she didn't peg him as a liar.  Even if he didn't actually say it and no one was able to tell the future, she'd trust him.

 

Though it was little consolation, no one seemed to be doing any better with the situation than she.  The students across the aisle were in a small huddled clump, with only a few strays sitting apart and rooted to their chairs.  Across the room, a man and a woman who looked to be plainclothes cops weren't doing much in the way of protecting or serving.  Then again, it would be two against five.  Judy didn't blame them for wanting to stay alive just as much as any of the rest of them. 

 

Around Judy, a sort of moat had formed when the baby started crying.  No one wanted to sit too close in case the next shot was meant for either of them.  Judy knew she was alone and exposed with a screaming baby.  She was tempted to send Zoe over to the others, but the little girl was leaning hard on her mama's leg with the Doctor’s umbrella all wrapped up in her arms, and didn't look to be budging any time soon.  Any attempt to move her would just cause more of a scene.

 

Judy wasn't the church-going sort: her daddy believed in Jesus, her mama believed in Mary Kay, and she just didn't believe in much of anything after thirty-odd years, but she was praying.  She was praying to every god she'd ever heard of and a few she made up on the spot to pull her and her kids through okay.  When she ran out of gods and ideas for gods, she looked down at Zoe and she prayed to Father Time too, just in case.

 

And then there he was, looking exhausted as he staggered out of the ticket-booth.  He had his jacket off and his hands were bloody.  He was leaning on Ace.  She had her arm slung around his waist and a worried frown taking up residence between her eyebrows.  The other man, the biker, had stayed in the ticket booth.  Judy doubted the Doctor would have had him stay with a corpse.  Somehow he must have saved that boy's life.  Judy breathed a sigh of relief.  Zoe was just too young to have to learn about death quite yet, and it was good to know that if things went south they'd have a good doctor in the station.

 

He glanced up and their eyes met.  Judy was amazed at the change in them.  Before they had been full of life, playful and mysterious all at once.  Now the mystery had risen up and swallowed the play.  Judy knew that the bad wasn't through with them yet.

 

She didn't even need to look to know that Benjamin had his gun pointed to the Doctor's head.  He was, in most ways, a very stupid man, but even a man as deeply stupid as he knew the real power in the room when he saw it.  That power was now scaring the bejabbers out of him.

 

"What the fucking hell did you do in there?" he shouted.

 

The Doctor and Ace didn't turn.  They kept walking, and the Doctor's eyes didn't leave Judy's.  ‘It's all right,’ they seemed to say, ‘I'm here to save you all.’  And she believed them.

 

Until the gun moved.  Until Benjamin stepped in front of them, cutting off their path and pointing the gun in Ace's face.  "What if I shoot her?" he asked, pumping the shotgun.  "You want to demonstrate that trick for the entire class?"

 

"Oh, lay off it," Ace said, staring down the barrel of a twelve-gauge as though it were something she did all the time.  "You're not going to shoot me.  You just got one murder charge knocked down to attempted, so why would you take the chance a second time?  You're a moron, but you're not that much of a moron."

 

Benjamin lowered the gun and Ace smirked.  She made to move past him, but he reached out and grabbed her by the arm, jerking her from the Doctor's side.  The Doctor stumbled, grabbing the back of the nearest chair for support.  Ace tried to twist, tried to hit or scratch or claw or whatever a girl who wasn't really trained in much but had enough guts could do.  But Benjamin had a knife in his hand, and as he laid it against her throat, Ace lowered her arm.  Not her gaze, though.  That remained defiantly locked on Benjamin.  "What are you going to do, Ben?" she asked.  "You going to cut me?  Are you going to look me in the eye and kill me?"  She snorted.  "Of course, it takes real courage to kill an unarmed girl.  Not many blokes have the stones for that."

 

Ben didn't say anything.  He didn't need to really.  The man with the knife has that kind of intimidation without any help.  He just flicked the knife and sliced through a strap on her tank-top, drawing a thin, beaded line of blood in the process.

 

Ace's eyes went wide as everything clicked and she understood what he had planned for her.  Probably had it planned since he laid eyes on her.  She jerked back away from the knife, trying to get leverage, but it was too close and all her struggles just drew more little cuts.  The next strap went.  Judy saw that Ace, for all her toughness, for all her pluck and strength and uncanny maturity, was fighting tears of panic.

 

The Doctor straightened himself up and shouted, "Stop!" in a voice that filled the room.  Filled the whole of the world, seemed like.  He had such presence, such command, that Judy pulled Zoe close and waited for lightning bolts.

 

Benjamin wasn't affected.  Then again, being the man with the knife does funny things to a person.  "Why?" he asked, sliding his free hand around Ace's middle and jerking her back against his chest.  "You wanted a piece of this?  Maybe already had one?"

 

"Bastard," Ace was hissing, tears getting away from her as Benjamin's hand slid up under her shirt.  "Dirty, rotten son of a bitch.  I'll kill you.  I swear I'll kill you."

 

The Doctor was the still point in the middle of the storm.  Judy could feel an almost physical cold radiating out around him.  It made her shiver.  The Doctor let go of the chair and stepped around it.  The Gothy little girl in that chair shrunk away from him, her eyes round under her liner.  Even Benjamin was no longer so much standing as hiding behind Ace.  The hand holding his knife to her throat was shaking.  "You can't do a fucking thing to me," he said.  He didn't seem all that certain.

 

The Doctor cocked his head a fraction.  "Are you so certain?  Do you have any clue who I am?  What I am?  You have no idea what I'm capable of.  _I_ have no idea what I'm capable of except that I've yet to reach my limits.  And if you had any inkling of what I've done in just this lifetime, that would make you quake.  Now, if you don't remove your hands from her _this instant_, we'll all find out just how far I can go."

 

And then, in the corner of the room, the plainclothes policewoman was on her feet, clutching a gun in both hands and shouting, "Police!  Drop your weapons and put your hands on your heads!"

 

Three of the thugs turned their guns toward her.  A fourth and Benjamin were still staring down the Doctor.  Judy kept her eyes on the tiny man right in the middle of everything and willed him to do it.  She willed him to save them all.


	3. Chapter 3

Here's what happened, as far as Jessica could see: one second, everything was going to hell in a handbasket, and then the next . . . the next the little guy who called himself a doctor flicked his wrist like he'd done for that kid, and there was this thing that looked kind of like a silver ball-point pen in his hand.

 

The pen hummed.  Even Ben seemed kind of confused.  And that was about when the hum became a shriek.  Jessica clapped her hands over her ears as the sound slammed into her.  It felt like it was cutting away her ability to think or move or do anything other than curl up into a little ball and rock in misery. 

 

She looked up through streaming eyes and saw the doctor standing in the middle of everything, unaffected and holding the pen-thing aloft like it was the lantern which would get them through the wilderness.  He bellowed, "Get out now!"

 

The gaggle of other students didn't seem nearly as affected and dashed through the door without a glance back.  Several others: a few old women, some vets, a family of white trash and some others, they got out, too.  That left the police, the lady and her screaming kids, the biker and the kid in the ticket booth, the thugs, the doctor, the girl, and her.  She saw the door.  She knew she could get up and get out, but she was too close to the noise and her legs just wouldn't work.

 

Then, the thug with Ben crashed into the doctor shoulder-first.  They both fell.  The pen rolled under her chair, falling silent.  Ben's arm was down.  The girl he was holding grabbed his arm with both hands, brought it down across her knees with all her might, and then elbowed him in the gut when he dropped the knife.  He staggered back and she shot forward, yanking the thug off the doctor and punching him in the face.  He fell down again, and she went down on top of him as she just kept hitting.  Jessica felt a dull shock as she saw the girl’s eyes change from deep brown to a yellow-amber.  She snarled, and her canines were elongated.  The doctor got to his feet and pulled her away from the thug.  She rounded on him, apparently ready to do damage to anyone who got in her way.  She lifted a fist, then blinked and stopped.  She was sobbing. 

 

The doctor touched her shoulder and looked her in the eye.  There was something that passed between them.  Her eyes went back to brown, her teeth were normal, and Jessica wondered if she hadn’t imagined the whole thing.  The girl stood there, looking crumpled and sad as she tugged up the tank top which sagged dangerously low.  She clutched the stretchy fabric close to her chest and shook her head, scattering tear drops across the linoleum before tumbling into him and grabbing at his lapels with her free hand.

 

Meanwhile, the thugs had opened fire on the police once the pen thing stopped working.  The two detectives were pinned down.  Only one of them—the lady—seemed to have a gun, which ran out of ammo pretty quick, but not before shooting one of the thugs in the leg and another in the chest.  Then, the lady cop’s gun clicked and the thugs closed in.  Jessica shut her eyes, but no gunshot came and she opened her eyes just in time to see the lady cop get a shotgun butt in the face.  She dropped and her partner ran over to her.  He was held up and searched by the one uninjured thug as the one shot in the leg stood over the lady.  The one shot in the chest was lying on the ground bleeding.  Probably dead.

 

Before the confusion died down, Jessica ducked down and grabbed the pen-thing.  She was surprised that, despite the fact the doctor had been clutching it so tightly, the metal was still cool.  She slipped it up under her corset, figuring the thugs might empty her pockets, but they weren't as likely to slit her corset laces.  Of course, after the girl with the doctor was attacked, that wasn't really a certainty.  Still, it wasn't like Jessica could swallow it.

 

The thugs dragged the two cops forward, shoving the man into a seat and dropping the woman at his feet.  She stirred, her movements disjointed and sluggish, and he kept making little abortive movements to touch her arm.  Each move was met with a gun in his face.  The thugs didn't shoot them, though.  They were too busy staring at the real threat as he straightened his cuffs.

 

The thugs, and especially Ben, looked terrified and overwhelmed.  Jessica couldn't blame them.  They'd probably hoped for a relatively easy stick-up, and instead they had to contend with a doctor who carried sonic bombs in his pockets.

 

Ben put the gun in the doctor's face, and the little guy just rolled his eyes.  "Honestly," he said, "must we repeat this dance?  I mean, we trade words and then you put a gun to my head, and then we start the whole thing again."  He acted as though nothing were wrong.  As though there had been a minor disagreement over cricket or something.  Next to him, the girl had drawn herself up, still clutching the remains of her shirt and trying to hide the fact that she'd cried.  She'd probably hate if the doctor had drawn any more attention to her predicament, but Jessica could see therapy bills in their future.  If two weird people like that believed in therapy.

 

"You've got a death-wish," Ben said. 

 

"And what wish do you have?" the doctor asked, all mild manners.  "I doubt you came here to wave guns about and frighten people.  So, what is it that you intended to do before you made the rather unfortunate choice of shooting someone and getting me involved in this sordid business, hmm?"

 

Again, the doctor had rendered Ben speechless and off-balance.  Jessica figured he must make a habit of it, to do it so well.  She’d seen guys like him: dealers and the like with silver tongues.  They could sell you their shit and have you addicted before you even noticed that you wanted any.  Before Ben could say anything, the lady cop groaned and the thugs all had their guns trained on her. 

 

"I'm going to let them shoot her," Ben said to the doctor.

 

"No," the doctor said in unison with her partner.

 

"Look," the partner said, talking fast and looking scared, "I know what she did was stupid.  I know!  But you can't . . . I mean, she was just looking out for the kid over there.  Your guys shot at us first, and it was self-defense, and she's a good cop.  Shit.  Please."

 

Ben trained his gun on the lady cop and pulled the trigger.  The bullet slammed through her shoulder.  She gasped and her partner nearly jumped Ben, snarling. 

 

"That was for Cody," he said, glancing at the guy with the shot in his leg.  Then, he took aim again.

 

"Stop!" the doctor insisted.  "This is unnecessary!"

 

Ben nodded at the man on the ground who'd stopped bleeding, moving, and breathing.  "You call that necessary?"

 

"More than this sadistic torture of another being, yes.  She was defending herself.  You've shot her once.  Let her be."

 

Ben shot the lady cop through the heart and she died with her eyes open and staring at the ceiling.  Her partner moaned this low, wrenched-out sound, and scrambled to her side. 

 

The doctor stood still.  He stared at the dead woman on the floor with one hand on the girl's wrist.  The girl herself had blanched white, while the doctor was still and old and so tired.  "I'm sorry," he whispered, voice barely more than a breath.  "I'm so very sorry."

 

Ben grabbed the doctor by the collar and dragged him over to the chair next to the mother and her screaming kids, tossing him down into it.  The girl went with, staying close to the doctor and starting to really look out of her depth.

 

"You're not in charge here, Doctor," Ben said.  "I am."

 

Jessica drew her knees close to her chest and hugged them.  She too looked at the dead cop on the floor.  She wondered if she'd look as small and heavy when they shot her.  She wondered if they might be here for her, and if maybe that made the lady cop's death her fault.

 

She was trying really hard not to care.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

Judy was keeping Zoe's face turned from the dead woman as one of the thugs dragged her and the man she'd killed into the ticket booth.  The biker carried the ticket-taker out of the little room when they entered, both looking deeply moved by different emotions.  The kid was weeping, and the old man hardened over, stiffening against the horrors the world had to offer.

 

He looked around, taking in the whole situation.  His eyes darkened in fury as he saw Ace tying her tank-straps back together, sitting in that chair with her shoulder pressed to the Doctor's, keeping him touch-close.  The biker started toward her, but the Doctor nodded to the shaking policeman on the floor, still crouched next to the pool of his partner's blood.  The biker stiffened and they looked at one another.  Then, after a second, the biker nodded, went to the policeman and nudged him with his foot.  The cop lunged up, ready to fight, but sagged again when he saw the biker carrying the ticket-taker. 

 

"Come on, Son," the biker said.  "We'd best join up with the rest."

 

The policeman nodded, a slow, jerky movement only half-recalled.  Then he staggered to his feet and shuffled after the biker as he walked over and laid the ticket-taker down on a row of seats across from Judy.  The biker sat at the kid's head, the cop sat at the kid's feet, and, as the thugs were busy dealing with bodies, all eyes turned to the Doctor.

 

"You're not human," the biker said.  Not really an accusation.  Not even something he was overly-worried about.  Just something that needed airing.  Judy had suspected as much for a while, but it was strange to have it tossed out there so bald-faced.

 

The Doctor and Ace exchanged a glance, and the Doctor shrugged.  "No, Mister Ross, I'm not," he said.

 

The biker nodded.

 

"Then what are you?" Judy asked.  "Are you an angel?"

 

There was the barest of bitter smiles on his face as he shook his head.

 

Her heart went cold with a thought.  "A devil?"

 

"My dear Judy," he said, despite the fact she'd never told him her name, "if I'm not human, why must I be divine?"

 

"Because there's nothing else."

 

"There are a thousand-million things I might be: animal, mineral, vegetable . . . extraterrestrial."

 

"There's no such thing," Judy whispered, no longer sure.

 

"Yes, there are," Ace said.  "Billions of species all over the cosmos.  The Doctor's just one."

 

"I don't believe you," Judy said.

 

"Why not?" the Doctor asked.  "Why is it that you could believe I was an angel, but not that I could be born on a different planet, breathe different air, grow up under a different sun?"  He held out his hand, palm-up.  "Feel my pulse, Judy."

 

Reaching out, she did as he told her, fumbling with his wrist.  It was dry and cold under her hand, barely warmer than the air around him.  Then, under her fingers, she felt the pulse.  She froze.  It wasn't right.  Each beat had an echoed beat following a bit behind.  It was as though—"You have two hearts," she said.

 

"Two hearts, a respiratory system which doesn't remotely resemble yours, a brain structure totally different than yours.  I look like you, but we're nothing alike."  He took her by the hand.  "I'm so sorry, Judy.  None of you were to know."

 

"I've got a gun," the cop whispered.  That thought hung between them all like a big tire swing, and Judy was pretty sure most of them wanted to climb on and go for a ride.  She just wasn't sure who the target would be.  Before, things had seemed so clear, but now?  Now their savior was an alien.  She had yet to see a movie where the aliens were good that she believed.

 

Ace uncurled, her feet lowering to the ground and her body shifting into a more ready position.  "Planning on shooting someone?" she asked, leaving no doubt in anybody's mind that the answer had best be 'no.'

 

The cop was looking the Doctor up and down.  Probably waiting for him to sprout tentacles or something.  Judy had to admit that some part of her was doing the same thing.  Some part of her was all right with the cop shooting this sweet little man, because he wasn't really a sweet little man.  He was an alien, and he'd maybe lied about everything.  Of course, if he shot the Doctor, he'd have to shoot Ace, who, as far as Judy knew, might be a real person.  And then the thugs would shoot the cop.  But she understood the sentiment.

 

And the Doctor knew that.  His eyes shimmered with a sort of quiet disappointment.  She'd failed some test.  She wasn't what he'd hoped or thought she could be.  Maybe he didn't understand that there was a certain level of disappointment for her as well.  She'd actually bought into the thought that an angel might exist, that maybe her daddy had been right all along.  But it wasn't true.  He was an alien.  He sucked out brains or was invading Earth or was just different, but not in the way he should be.  Not in the way that meant there was a God who was looking out for Judy and her girls.

 

"Nobody's shooting nobody," the biker said.

 

"What about Ben and his goons?" the cop asked.  "Can we shoot them, or are we going to sit around knitting baby booties until they decide to put a bullet through our brains?"

 

"Detective Thomson, violence is not the answer," the Doctor said.

 

"How the hell do you know my name?"

 

Ace said, "Because he's a telepath.  And rude."

 

"Well, Mr. Telepath, if you're vetoing me shooting these sons of bitches—or you for that matter—you’d better have a damn good idea what we're going to do instead.  Got something other than a name game and a whistling pen up you sleeve?"

 

"Language," the Doctor said.

 

"What?"

 

"There are children present.  Please watch what you say."  Zoe looked up him.  He met her gaze with a gentle smile.  The baby screamed.  The Doctor brushed a hand over her head and she fell silent, her eyes slipping closed.  "What's her name?" he asked.

 

"Don't have one," Judy said, pulling the baby back and away from that touch.  She wanted to hit him.  He'd done something to her baby.  Him and his telepathy.  "She was named after my husband's mom, but I'm changing it.  She don't have a name yet."  Working up her courage, she said, "You did something to my baby."

 

"Just a little nudge," he said.  "Babies are suggestible as is.  It takes very little to convince them to take a bit of a nap."

 

"You just got inside my baby's head and told her to take a nap?"

 

He pulled back a little more, his eyes cool and distant.  He was closing himself to her, shielding himself from her distrust, her distaste.  "I'm sorry," he said.  "I thought it better that she sleep."

 

Zoe didn't look away from the Doctor.  Maybe she was too young to understand what 'alien' meant.  Maybe she was different from her mother, and the idea that he was an alien was no less wonderful than the idea that he could be an angel.  Maybe she'd rather have an alien.  Maybe Zoe had never cared about what he was called in the first place.  Her little girl seemed to have some kind of sympathy to the Doctor, and he didn't have to be anything in particular for her to be awe-struck.  He just had to be him.

 

"How the hel—how'd a couple of aliens wind up on a Greyhound, anyway?" Thomson asked, his voice rough.  His eyes kept making dashes to his old seat in the corner of the room.

 

"Hey, I’m human.  Well, mostly human," Ace said.  "London born and raised, aren't I?  I only found out about the whole space and time travel thing when I was sixteen."

 

"You got parents back in London?" the biker asked.

 

"My mum still lives there.  At least I guess she does.  We never got on."  Ace crossed her arms.  "Besides, the Doctor's ship's my home.  I don't need to go back."

 

Again, Judy understood.  Ace and she, they were cut from the same cloth.  Could have been friends in another life if some alien didn't stand smack-dab between them, separating them forever from any real understanding.  Maybe that's why the Doctor had been disappointed.  Maybe he'd seen Ace in her, and rejection wasn't something he'd seen coming.

 

"Excuse me," Thomson said.  "Anyone remember the men with guns?  The ba—men who shot my partner?"

 

"Yes," the Doctor said, his voice distant.  "I do.  The problem is that currently the balance of power is very much in their favor, and little I do seems to change that."

 

"So, what's the good of being an alien if you can't do anything?" Thomson asked.  He was angry.  He was on the edge of breaking entirely, and he was redirecting all that grief.  Too bad they were the nearest things he could explode on.

 

"What's the good of being human?" the Doctor asked.

 

"I could make it to my gun," Thomson said.  "Seriously, I could get there, take out a few more—"

 

"And be a martyr?  Honestly, Detective, you're no good to any of these people if you throw your life away."

 

Something dangerous had entered Thomson's eyes.  "Are you saying Jimenez threw her life away?"

 

The Doctor looked away.  "No.  I'm well aware of what she gave her life for."  He glanced at Ace.  "And I know the debt I owe her."

 

"Then—"

 

"I intend to pay that debt by ensuring that no one else here dies.  Including you, Detective Thomson."

 

The policeman slumped in his chair, deflating as soon as he'd flared.  His face was buried in his hands, but Judy didn't think he was crying.  That man was too wrung-out to cry just yet.  Maybe later, when all this was done and he was alone it would all hit him.

 

For now, they were too busy to cry.  All except the baby, and she was in a deep sleep after the Doctor had done whatever it was he did to her. 

 

"We got a plan?" Tim asked.

 

"Um," Judy said, feeling like the quiet kid in class.  "Maybe this is dumb, but why don't we find out what they want and just, you know, give it to them?"

 

The Doctor nodded.  "That may be wise, although there is the risk that we either won't be able or won't be willing to provide it."

 

"Got that right," Ace muttered, the length of her upper arm pressed against his as she shifted ever-so-slightly closer. 

 

He caught her eyes and said, "That's not why they're here."

 

"Just a bonus, then?"

 

"Control.  Dominance.  Power.  Leverage.  Call it what you will, but I won't allow them to do that again."

 

"You can't save me from everything, Doctor," she said.

 

"No?"

 

There was a sound across the room and the small clump of people looked up to see the thugs headed their way once more.  Thomson shook his head.  They all knew he didn't have the time to get his gun.  The rest of them were just waiting to see what happened next.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Thomson felt like he’d had his ass thrown into the twilight zone.  They were in a hostage situation and he was as helpless as a kid.  Their only hope lay in the hands of an alien and his crazy human girlfriend; two people who had proved just as useless as the rest of them.

 

And Jimenez was dead.

 

When he let himself think about her he felt sick, shaky, and lost.  Thomson had eight years on the force and he’d never lost a partner.  Maybe it was working for the DMPD instead of some high-risk job like the LAPD or NYPD, but it was a rare and shocking thing to have an officer go down in the line of duty in Des Moines.

 

Some petty part of him was furious with her for getting into a firefight with five armed men.  The rational part of him got that she was protecting and serving, doing what she promised to do, what he promised to do but had been too smart or too piss-scared or just too stunned by her actions to do.  He wanted to scream at her (as though she’d hear him, wherever she went) that some things couldn’t be saved or protected or helped.  That getting killed didn’t solve anything.  Didn’t make the situation any better.  Didn’t save the alien’s girl.  It just made her dead.

 

The fuckers who’d done it were coming toward them with zip-ties in their hands.  One of them grabbed the Goth girl sitting apart from the group and hauled her along, throwing her into the chair on the far side of the Doctor’s girlfriend.  They tied her wrists to the arm-rests and her legs to the chair-legs.  Chair-legs that were bolted to the floor, and arm-rests that shared seats, so the Doctor’s girlfriend got her hand tied on top of the Goth girl’s.  Her other hand was tied to the arm-rest and the Doctor’s hand was tied on top of hers.  When Ben tied her ankles, Thomson watched with a sort of detached disgust as he felt up her thighs.  She closed her eyes tightly and gritted her teeth.

 

The Doctor laced his fingers through hers and started to stand. 

 

“Fuck,” Ben said, whipping the girl’s last zip-tie on and jumping up to shove the Doctor back in his seat.  “Stay down,” he said.

 

He tied the Doctor up and then the woman called Judy.  Her older kid got her hands tied behind her back and around her mom’s legs.  She didn’t let go of that umbrella of the Doctor’s.  He couldn’t figure out why she still held onto something that belonged to a fucking alien.  Maybe she was stupid or something.  The sleeping baby on the next chair was ignored and they came over.  The thugs zip-tied Mr. Ross to his chair.  Then they forced the ticket-taker up, folded down his arm-rest and tied him to the chair in which they propped him.

 

Then it was Thomson’s turn.  All he wanted was to make a dash for his gun before it was too late.  The Doctor was staring right at him, though, and in his head he heard the little bastard’s voice: “Now is not the time, Detective.”

 

It was enough of a distraction that Thomson’s wrists were zip-tied down before he could react.  As Ben tied his ankles to the chair-legs, Thomson focused all his fear and hate on the alien among them.  If he hadn’t interfered, Jimenez would be alive.  What the fuck gave him the right to invade Earth and get his partner killed?  Every problem they had here could be boiled down to the Doctor’s interference.  If they got out alive, Thomson wanted to personally hand him over to the government for dissection.

 

Like it or not, though, everyone else had handed over the reigns of their rescue to him.  When Ben stepped back to consider his handiwork, it was the Doctor who stepped up to play ball.  “Perhaps we might go back to my original question,” he said.

 

“Not before we search every single one of you.”  Ben nodded to his goons.  “Turn out their pockets.  You can keep anything good you find.”

 

Thomson got searched.  It was weird being on the receiving end.  He watched the men work.  One or even two of them acted as though this wasn’t their first pat down.  The idea that any of them could have once been cops stuck in Thomson’s craw.  What kind of cop shoots another cop?  Of course, what kind of cop holds up a bus terminal, when you get right down to it?

 

Ben personally turned the Doctor’s pockets out.  “This may take a while,” the Doctor said.

 

Thomson, and everyone else, watched with interest to see what came out of an alien’s pockets.  A magnifying glass appeared first.  Then a few coins, which were inspected and discarded.  Ben pocketed a folding antennaed device.  Then there was a jar of glue, a bus ticket, a white paper bag of gummy candies, books, a ball of string, some glowing stones, a leather-bound book with the words “500 Year Journal” stamped on the cover, a vial of something thick and violently blue, a pin shaped like a black cat, several handkerchiefs, a deck of playing cards the likes of which Thomson had never seen and then another deck of the standard Hoyle.  Then there was a yo-yo and a pocket watch confiscated over the Doctor’s protests.  He got a gun his face for his objections and a hard light entered his eyes.  Apparently even aliens had possessions they prized more than others.  Thomson caught an engraving on the cover before it disappeared into Ben’s pocket of some kind of hourglass motif with swirls and stuff.

 

“What?” Ben asked.  “Was it your dad’s?”

 

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed and he said, “It’s part of my college diploma, so if you’ll kindly give it back.”

 

Ben tapped him on the side of the head with the butt of his gun, not hard enough to hurt, but remind him of its presence.  “Trust me, you won’t be needing it.”

 

“He said, give it back.”  Thomson had to admit, she may be stone cold crazy for dating an alien who looked like a middle-aged Scotsman, but the Doctor’s girlfriend had cojones for sticking so fiercely by him.  It would be easy to back away, especially with the attention she’d already gotten from Ben, but every time it came down to the Doctor she’d been right there, steely eyed as Jimenez.

 

Of course, her dedication and love and whatever the fuck were probably going to get her just as dead as Jimenez too.  After all, life doesn’t usually hand out gold stars for doing good deeds, and karma was for people who didn’t get how the world worked.  Karma was for people who didn’t see their partner killed for saving a girl’s life.

 

Ben turned toward the girl, but the Doctor said, “I believe you weren’t done turning out my pockets, Benjamin.”  His voice was cool, clipped, and his eyes returned again and again to the pocket into which his watch had disappeared.  Thomson wondered where he really got it and why it meant so much to him.  Was he telling the truth?  Did aliens go to college the same as humans?

 

Ben reluctantly returned his attention to the Doctor, producing a box of chalk, several small machines Thomson couldn’t identify, and a metal beetle.  Finally he finished turning out the Doctor’s four pants pockets and everyone stared at the impossible pile of items which had been produced from those four pockets.  Of course, the real advantage to the lengthy search of the Doctor’s person was that one of the other goons had searched his girlfriend.  The Doctor was, in ways subtle and less-than, keeping his promise to remove her from harm’s way.

 

“Jesus,” Ben said.  “How the hell did you pack all that shit into your pockets?”

 

“They’re dimensionally transcendental,” the Doctor said.

 

Ben might have shot the Doctor then, he seemed on that edge, but Mr. Ross let out a bellow as one of the goons took some sort of jewelry box from his pocket.  He was trying to get up, and the thug had to hit him three times with the butt of his gun before he fell back.  Thomson didn’t know what was in the box, but he wouldn’t like to be that thug if Mr. Ross got himself free.

 

Ben stalked off to confer with his goons, probably about the loot they’d pulled.  As he did he kicked the pile of the Doctor’s things, scattering them across the floor.  The Doctor’s girl muttered, “Ask a stupid question . . .”

 

“Quiet, Ace.”  So that was her name, or at least a handle.  Probably some street name she’d never outgrown, or it was short for Alice or something.  The Doctor raised his voice.  “I don’t suppose, now that the formalities are out of the way, that you’d like to tell us what you’ve come for?”

 

Ben looked at his goons, but none of them had anything productive to say.  Didn’t really talk much, them.  Hired muscle and no more.  Ben was the brains of the outfit, which was a sad statement.  He turned around, walked to the middle of their two rows so they flanked him on either side, and he scanned them all with his eyes, taking in his prisoners.  “A girl,” he said.

 

“What, you get turned down for the grab-a-granny one too many times?” Ace asked as a sullen aside.  Thomson could see how she tensed every time Ben passed too close.  He understood that rebellious contempt, that angry reaction to fear.  Jimenez might have been the one who looked deep into motive and all that, but Thomson played dumb cop more than he was.  In fact, understanding body language and why a person might say or do a thing was key to being a decent interrogator, and Thomson was as solid as they came at pulling in the confessions.  Maybe not the used-car-salesman of long prison sentences, but he was still by no means shabby. 

 

Thomson wondered if the Doctor realized how unlikely it was that she was getting out of this situation intact.  She got on Ben’s bad side early on, and her bravado wasn’t doing her any favors.

 

The Doctor’s hand tightened around hers, his eyes downcast.  He did know, and it scared him shitless.  It was funny, but Thomson had a hard time coming to grips with the fact that this guy, alien or no, wasn’t just stringing some poor girl along.  He was sticking by her just as strong as she was him.  He’d nearly gotten killed at least twice just keeping her from Ben, and his concern now—that flash of naked terror in his eyes when Ben turned slowly around—told a different story than an attachment of convenience or passing interest.  There was devotion so utter and absolute that Thomson knew it wasn’t human.  It was something more, something that only existed in fairy-tales and hokey romance novels.

 

“Getting a stronger and stronger feeling who she might be,” Ben said.  He didn’t pull his gun for once.  He just waked right up close to Ace.  She stared past him, jaw set. 

 

“Really?  Whatever gives you that impression?” the Doctor asked, voice reaching a panicky pitch and speeding along at ninety-miles-an-hour.  “Are you looking for a specific girl or just any old girl, because if the former is the case, then I must tell you that Ace and I have been traveling extensively—”

 

“Very extensively,” Ace said.

 

“—so whatever you think she did or want her for, she couldn’t possibly have been involved.”

  
“Who—” Ben started.

 

“If, however, you’re looking for the latter, I can say that I’ve met much nicer, more accommodating ladies who wouldn’t object to you and your . . . notable qualities.  Which, of course, my young friend does.  And I do for that matter.  So, all things considered, you really couldn’t be looking for Ace, now could you?  Hmm?”

 

“That was almost smooth,” Ben said.  Thomson was, for once, in total agreement with the little shit.  Too bad almost only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades. 

 

“Not my finest hour, I admit,” the Doctor said.

 

Ben nodded.  “Who hired you?”

 

The Doctor and Ace exchanged blank looks.  “Sorry?” the Doctor asked.

 

And the gun to the Doctor’s head made its reappearance.  Thomson couldn’t blame the alien for getting a little blasé about the gun.  There was only so much staring down the barrel of a gun a guy could do before it just lost its edge.  Of course, Ben probably skipped that day in Intimidation 101.

 

“Who hired you to transport her back for the trial?  How high up does this go?”

 

“I don’t—”

 

Ben hauled off to pistol-whip the little guy again (and where had his bruise and cut gone anyway?) but the ticket-kid, of all people, blurted out, “UNIT!  His ID was from some group called UNIT.”

 

Ben looked confused and worried.  So that wasn’t the response he was counting on.  What the hell was UNIT, anyhow, and since when did Earth start outsourcing to alien contractors?  Or was he an alien?  Had he lied about that?  How did he explain the disappearing cut, or saving the ticket kid, or reading their minds, or having two heartbeats?  No, the little bastard was an alien, but he was also employed by some Earth agency.  Or was he?  Thomson was lost, and it pissed him off.

 

“Who’s The Unit, and what’s their interest in this?” Ben asked.

 

The Doctor looked flustered.  “It’s UNIT, not the Unit, and it’s an acronym for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.”

 

“The fucking UN is in on this?!”

 

“I think you’ve got the wrong impression.  I haven’t worked for UNIT in almost two-hundred years.  As for their interest, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

 

Ben didn’t believe a word of it.  Maybe it was that two-century figure thrown in.  “You know, that absent-minded professor act is good.  You had me going there for a long time.  But the machine you had, your ID, the way you’ve fucked up every single facet of what was supposed to be a smooth, easy job?  No.  You’re in this deep.  Even if you’re a private contractor now, someone hired you to get ‘Ace’ here to St. Louis.  So, who is it?  The city?  The state?  The victims’ families?  How did they contact you and who all knows you’re transporting her?”

 

Something like a mad gleam entered the Doctor’s eyes.  “Oh, there are so many people who know we’re traveling together.  Let me see, there’s Brigadier Bambera, Brigadier-General Lethbridge-Stewart, The Master . . .”

 

“Colonel Millington,” Ace added.  “Kingpin and Mags, Captain Glitz and Mel . . .”

 

“Redvers fen Cooper,” the Doctor said, “Nemesis, Helen A and Silas P, Josiah Samuel Smith, Earl Sigma—”

 

“Theta Sigma, too,” she said, smiling at him.

 

He returned the smile.  “Oh, absolutely.  And one can’t forget Dorothy.”

 

“Or the Old Girl.”

 

He looked up at Ben.  “I do believe that’s it.”

 

“Except there’s hundreds more,” Ace said.  “We’re well-known on at least six worlds.”

 

“I don’t know what kind of dumb-fuck you think I am,” Ben said.

 

“Probably best that way,” the Doctor replied.

 

“But I’m being paid to do a job, and I’m getting it done one way or another.”

 

“Are you going to kill us?” the ticket-boy asked.

 

“Might be,” Ben said.  “Everyone but ‘Ace’ here.  Or should I call you Jessica now?”

 

Thomson was in the right position that he saw what Ben didn’t.  He saw the Goth girl flinch, her eyes widen.  In the interrogation room, he’d have called that a tell.  For him, at least, a lot of the pieces of this puzzle fell into place.  Ben was barking up the wrong tree, and the Doctor really was just an alien passing through.  The real witness was that pale little girl hiding behind all the black leather and heavy makeup.

 

“All right,” Ace said.  “You call me Jessica and I’ll call you Bill.  Fun game!  Can I call you Tom later?  Or Tony?  How many names do you want to go through?”

 

Something was different about Ben.  He was fixed on Ace, focused on her.  He thought he had everything all sewn up, and he was going to get done what he came to do.  Whatever that was. 

 

The Doctor saw the shift maybe a second before she did, and his eyes went from that mad, teasing gleam to wide and horrified in a heartbeat.  “Ace,” the Doctor hissed.

 

“Cut her loose,” Ben said.  “I’m going to have a word with Miss Moritz in the back.”

 

Ace’s eyes were as round as her boyfriend’s, but she still had her chin up and her jaw set defiantly.  “You, me and the bodies?” Ace asked.  “Don’t count on it, Toerag.”

 

But men were already at work, already cutting Ace’s zip-ties.  As soon as she was free, she fought, turning with a shocking, fluid grace to slam her fist into the face of the man who had untied her.  She followed that by a snapped kick under his jaw, toppling him.  Her eyes glimmered with a yellow light and Thomson finally understood what she’d meant by ‘mostly human.’  Then, one of the others hit her between the shoulder blades with the butt of his rifle and she fell.  They pinned her and dragged her, thrashing, to her feet.

 

“Stop!” the Doctor was shouting.  “You’ll hurt her!”

 

Then, cutting through the commotion like a knife, was the one sound Thomson had prayed to hear.  Police sirens screamed, drawing closer and stopping.  The fucking cavalry had finally arrived, probably called down by one of the lucky ones who’d gotten out when the Doctor used his screaming pen.

 

Everyone stared at the door.  They heard through the woodwork, “This is the Iowa City Police.  Come out with your hands up and surrender yourselves.  You will not be harmed.”

 

“Do you see?” the Doctor said, eyes burning.  “All your best-laid plans are coming apart at the seams, Benjamin.  You must let us go if you’re to have any hope of getting out of here alive.”

 

“Shit,” Ben hissed.  He pulled his knife again and pointed at Ace, who was still pinned between the two goons who were still conscious.  “What did you tell the prosecution?”

 

“Not a clue what you’re talking about.”  Ace faced him with a wintry expression on her face Thomson would wager she’d learned from the Doctor. 

 

Ben grabbed her, pulling her along toward the ticket booth, knife in hand. 

 

The Doctor shouted, “Benjamin!” but he was ignored. 

 

Ben whispered something to Ace and she started struggling again.

 

“Benjamin!” the Doctor shouted again, the very picture of helpless fury.  “Benjamin!”

 

And then Ben threw Ace into the ticket booth and followed, shutting the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Tim watched the Doctor shake with fury and hate.  Tim wondered if he might have looked like that too the night he killed a man, because in his state, the Doctor seemed liable to do anything.  If it was Tim’s little girl in there, he’d take his own hands off at the wrist getting to her.  He’d beat those men to death with his bloody stumps and call it righteous retribution.

 

His eyes went to the door, but there was no sign that the police were going to make a move any time soon.  They were always slow on the pickup, were law enforcement types.  Probably worried about liability while a girl was getting savaged.

 

And then, as the thugs moved off to take a look at what their boss was doing to Ace, the Doctor turned on the little girl in the black leather.  “Are you going to let this happen?” he asked.

 

“What?” she asked.

 

“You know precisely what I’m asking.  Are you going to let those men harm an innocent girl because they believe she’s you?”

 

“I’m not—”

 

“Miss Moritz, I suggest you not attempt to lie to me.  I’m in no mood.  Now, the question put to you here is this: you sold everything you had to get this new life, your old friends, your life and livelihood.  You knew the risks when you chose.  Do you face the potential consequences of that choice now?  Do you follow through, or do you thrust someone else on the pyre in front of you?”

 

She looked away.  “It’s not my problem,” she said.

 

“That girl is suffering because you won’t speak out.”

 

“Would you rather I suffer?  You have no idea what I went through to get here.  I’m not giving up what I’ve got going.”

 

“Not even for another human life?”

 

“I’ve never met her before, and, no offense, but one of us is going to end up dead either way.  If it’s her or me getting through this alive, I pick me.”

 

“And when they realize their mistake?  You’ll still die.”

 

“Then I’ll bank on the chance that she can’t convince them she’s not me.”

 

The Doctor snarled something Tim couldn’t make out.  There was the sound of shouting through the door to the ticket booth and a crack of something very hard against flesh and bone.  A feminine groan, low and pained.  The Doctor hissed like an angry viper and then the thugs were coming back.  Tim tested his bonds for the twentieth time.  Nothing gave.  The thugs were going from person to person testing the tightness of the zip-ties.  Outside, the police were repeating the message.  Soon, Tim thought, they’d be sending in a phone if the movies were to be believed, which was a great load of bullshit, in his opinion.

 

What the hell good were the police if they wouldn’t move?  If no one could move, then how were things going to get better?  How could he be an avenging angel when he couldn’t even leave his seat?

 

The Doctor’s head snapped up as two thugs approached him, and Tim felt the change.  This wasn’t the man, but the stone god—alien or not—who was present now.  His eyes were chill and dire and so flat, like a sheet of ice over a very deep lake.  A man’d be liable to drown if he broke that ice.

 

“Come here,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

 

“What?” one man asked.

 

The Doctor wasn’t blinking, wasn’t looking away.  Tim felt a weight settle about him.  The woman next to the Doctor was squirming, but her little girl was staring up at the Doctor, her mouth hanging open.

 

“Shit,” the cop whispered.  “Holy fucking shit.”

 

“Come here,” the Doctor repeated.  The men approached, guns half-raised, eyes round.

 

“Do you hear those sirens?” the Doctor asked.

 

“Yes,” came the whispered reply from the other. 

 

“Those men have come for you, do you understand that?”

 

“Yes.”

 

The Doctor nodded.  “Yet here you are, waiting for your illustrious leader to give the orders.”  He leaned forward.  “He’s going to get you killed,” he said, each word so leaden that Tim felt that he would be crushed under the weight of the Doctor’s speech.

“I . . .” the man said.

 

“He’s going to kill you unless you give in, surrender yourselves to the police.  Surrender.”

 

“I . . .”

 

“Drop your gun, go outside, and surrender yourself.”

 

“But . . .”

 

“Drop your gun,” the Doctor said again, voice full of thunder and eyes full of lightning.  “Go outside.  Surrender yourself.”

 

Both their guns clattered to the floor and the men turned, marionettes with the Doctor pulling the strings.  Their eyes were lifeless and lightless, their steps stiff and artificial as they propelled themselves toward the door, feet hitting the tile in perfect unison.  A terrible smile had settled itself on the Doctor’s face.

 

From the other side of the room, the other thug turned to see his comrades drop their guns and leave, hands in the air.

 

He ran over, pointing his gun wildly.  “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

 

“Benjamin is going to kill you,” the Doctor said again.

 

“What the hell are you—”

 

“He’s.  Going.  To.  Kill.  You.”

 

“He’s . . .”

 

“He’s going to kill you.”

 

“He’s going to kill us!” the man gasped, as though it was his revelation, as though the Doctor had no part.  “That son of a bitch wants to finish this job, but I didn’t sign on to get killed.  I can’t collect on the money when I’m dead.”

 

“You can get out of here,” the Doctor said, “but you must let me go.  I must help you.”  He had that abstracted, powerful look in his eye.  The man responded without question, cutting the Doctor’s ties and straightening, a toy soldier waiting for his next orders.

 

“Now,” the Doctor said, “free Mr. Ross so he can retrieve that gun on the floor, and then we’re all paying a visit to Benjamin.”  The Doctor was vengeance at that moment, cold and hating.  The thug swallowed hard and did as he was told.  The Doctor stood, watching, eyes piercing the man’s back.  Tim wanted to check under the thug’s shirt for the strings the Doctor was pulling.  This wasn’t a man anymore, but a puppet.  Just like the other one.  The cop a few seats down was shaking with horror.  The ticket-kid looked liable to pass out. 

 

Tim stood, snatching his girl’s ring from the thug’s pocket while he was at it.  The man didn’t even react.  Tim looked him in the eye for any sign of faking it, but this guy was as blank as the others, everything about him that made him an individual completely covered up. 

 

Tim nodded, walked over to the discarded weapons and picked up a gun for the first time in over thirty years.  He flicked the safety off, checked the clip and then locked it back in place.  He looked up and the Doctor was watching him.

 

“This is your choice, Mr. Ross,” he said.  “You may leave now.  I’d not blame you.”

 

“There’s a girl suffering behind that door, Sir,” Tim said.  “Seems to me I’ve been a long time out of the world.  A long time when I couldn’t help nobody.  It’s an occupation I’d like to get back to.”

 

The Doctor came back a bit from that alien wrath.  A soft, sad expression ghosted across his face.  “Good man, Mr. Ross,” he said.

 

“What about me?” the cop asked suddenly.  “You’re finally getting at this bastard, finally got guns, and I’m left out.”

 

The Doctor eyed the cop.  Tim wanted to tell him no.  Tell him not to trust the cop as far as Judy’s little girl could punt him, because as soon as Benjamin was dealt with, he’d be turning his piece on the Doctor. 

 

The Doctor took the knife from the thug’s unresisting hand and walked over to the cop.  He knelt down in front of him. “Do what she would have wanted you to, Detective Thomson,” he whispered as he cut the ties on the cop’s ankles.  “I’m trusting you not to act on blind vengeance.”

 

And then he cut the ties on Thomson’s wrists, stepped back and waited.  Thomson stood.  There was a confrontation here.  The cop walked over to his old seat, eyes never leaving the Doctor, then he squatted down, pulled out his Glock from behind the orange vinyl seat, and came back.

 

The Doctor turned and said, “Come, Gentlemen.  It’s time we had a civilized conversation with our host.”

 

He led the way, and they let him.  He stopped at Miss Moritz, an expression close to disgust on his face, and said, “I believe you have something of mine.”

 

“I can’t reach it,” she said.

 

The Doctor pulled the wailing tube out from where it was tucked under her corset.  “Thank you,” he said, turned on his heel, and walked away.  Tim saw the girl flinch and watch him go, trying to look like she didn’t care.  She did, although maybe she’d forgotten what it felt like to care.  Tim walked away from her, knowing that there were some problems he couldn’t solve and some people who couldn’t be saved except by themselves. 

 

The Doctor, instead of readying his tube, slipped it back into one of his pockets.  Thomson still looked twitchy.  Tim kept an eye on Thomson’s gun, ready to remove it along with most of his hand if he so much as pointed it in the Doctor’s general direction.  Tim was a guardian angel, the right hand of God himself.  Tim was a believing man, but the idea that his stone god was from some other planet didn’t bother him all that much.  He knew God wouldn’t be sending any help, not to Tim Ross.  His angels would be stranger and more befitting a murderer.  He’d seen what the Doctor could do, seen his eyes all black and endless.  It didn’t matter where he’d come from so long as he was there.

 

“My good man,” the Doctor said, his eyes skipping over to his puppet thug.  “If you’d kindly knock for us.”

 

The man kicked in the door, striding in with his gun ready.  Thomson moved in after him, but didn’t shoot right away, something Tim had only half figured on.  Tim went next, and the Doctor followed him, unarmed, powerless except in that he had all the power.

 

Ben the Runt was standing over Ace.  She was slumped in a corner, her lip split and hand-prints still visible on her shoulders. He’d tried to force her down and she’d given him a hell of a fight.  She was down now, but it was more to do with the gun pointed at her than any physical prowess Ben had managed to marshall. 

 

“What the fuck?” Ben asked, spinning to see.

 

Ace’s smile was as cold and hard as the Doctor’s.  “That’s the Oncoming Storm, Mate.”

 

Ben was staring in horror as his own man covered him, his eyes glassy and unfocused.  “What . . ?”

 

“You, Sir,” the Doctor said, hands behind his back and eyes not leaving Ben, not even to blink, “have caused me no end of inconvenience.  You waylaid what was to be a perfectly routine trip to a perfectly normal human city, albeit due to a cult of alien-worshippers with delusions of temporal grandeur.  Then, you compound the issue by being so very obtuse that an amicable compromise is rendered impossible, and you single out my companion for your rather odious attentions, forcing my hand.”

 

Ben didn’t look to have heard a single word the Doctor had said.  He was still staring at his thug.  “What did you do to him?” 

 

“I told him what to think.”

 

“You—”

 

“You see, Benjamin, what you’ve failed to grasp in all of this, what’s eluded you, Rassilon only knows how, is that I’m not particularly human.”

 

Ben blanched white, as though he was seeing something really horrific.  “Not . . .”

 

“Human, Benjamin.  Come now, transcendental pockets, my sonic screwdriver, the fact that I mentioned multiple lifetimes and time scales like two-hundred years, and you never wondered?”

 

“You’re lying!  You work for the UN!”

 

“No, Benjamin.  I’m a Time Lord.”

 

Ben stumbled back, bringing his gun up and shouting something incomprehensible.  He wasn’t faking or intimidating this time.  He meant to shoot the Doctor, and that couldn’t be allowed.  There were shots fired.  Tim raised his own gun, but knew he was too late.  Things had gotten away from him and something terrible had happened.

 

Except the Doctor wasn’t down.  Ben, on the other hand, was thrown back against the wall next to Ace, two neat holes in his chest.  He slid to the floor, his eyes fixed with that last expression of fear.  Thomson, his gun still smoking, stepped forward and shot him again in the face. 

 

The Doctor rushed forward, checking Ace for injuries or stray shots.  She held tight to his arms as he helped her stand and then leaned on him for support.  The Doctor looked down at the huddle of flesh which was once Ben the Runt and said, “That was unnecessary.  There didn’t need to be any more death.”

 

The door in the main room slammed open, due, no doubt, to the sound of gunshots inside.

 

Thomson stared at the Doctor.  “I should shoot you, too.”

 

“There’s been enough killing, Detective.  Wanton destruction won’t bring her back to you.”

 

Thomson took aim, but didn’t fire.  He just stared down the barrel into a pair of eyes as old as time itself and so sad.  Finally his arm fell and all Thomson could manage was a bitter cough covering the sobs that were bound to come when he stopped moving.  He looked at the gun in his hand, then let it fall to the ground.  “Nobody’d believe me anyway.”  He turned and left.

 

oOo  oOo  oOo  oOo

 

Zoe stood with her mommy by the ambulance.  She’d spent a little time watching the sirens go, but then she did what Mommy had told her not to.  She looked at Father Time and Ace.

 

They stood by another ambulance, and Father Time had made the hospital people help Ace instead of him.  Probably because he had two hearts and the hospital people wouldn’t understand.  They’d be like Mommy and be afraid. 

 

Zoe wasn’t afraid.  Zoe had watched Father Time save them all, just like he’d promised.  She’d seen him come out of the ticket place with Ace next to him and they both looked old.  Ace had held out her hand and offered him back his watch and said, “I grabbed it when—well, he had his mind on other things.”

 

Father Time had hugged her and whispered, “Oh, Ace,” like she was the most important girl in the world, and since she was traveling with Father Time, Zoe believed that she was.

 

They were both covered with red splatters, like the watercolors her mom got her from WalMart, but Zoe knew they weren’t paint.  They were blood like the lady bled.  Zoe hoped they weren’t hurt.

 

Ace sat at the end of the ambulance, and the lights on the top lit up her hair.  She leaned her head on Father Time’s shoulder.  Mr. Ross, the big old man with the tattoos walked up to them and put a hand on her shoulder.  “You gonna be alright?” he asked.

 

She smiled but she was still sad.  “Oh, I’m ace,” she said.  The Doctor rubbed her arm.

 

“I’m headed to St. Louis to give my little girl a wedding present,” Mr. Ross said.  “I could take you along.  She’s a nice girl, she’d show you around.”

 

“What, to live?” she asked.

 

“If you want.”

 

“I’ve already got a home, thanks,” she said.  Then she looked at Father Time like she’d forgot that she was his favorite.  Zoe didn’t understand how she could have forgot the way he looked at her so soon.  “I still have one, don’t I, Professor?” she asked.

 

“As long as you want it,” he said. 

 

She smiled and leaned against him again. 

 

“We would accept a ride together,” Father Time said.  “We still need to go to St. Louis.”

 

“Something about a cult?”

 

“They’re looking to tear history apart,” Ace said. 

 

“I’ll give you a lift,” Mr. Ross said, and Zoe thought he might be a hero, too.  Father Time thought so.

 

“How are you going to get down there?” Ace asked.

 

“Well, my hip’s been feeling better since you cured that kid.  I figure you had something to do that,” he said to Father Time.  “I got my Harley.  I could hook up the passenger bucket for you, Doc.  Ace could ride the back.”

 

Father Time looked at Ace.  He was asking her a question without asking, and her smile was almost what Zoe remembered from when the men came.  Father Time said, “I think we’ll take you up on that, Mr. Ross.”

 

Mr. Ross said, “I’ll go get the Harley.  I don’t live far off.”

 

He walked away and Ace said, “Wicked.”

 

Miss Moritz, the girl who knew things she hadn’t said, walked by.  Ace didn’t see.  Her back was to Miss Moritz.  Father Time looked at Miss Moritz and she looked tough.  He looked away, not because he was scared, but because he was mad.  When he wasn’t looking, Miss Moritz looked sad, and stood back watching Father Time and Ace like she wanted to be Ace.  Zoe couldn’t blame her.  She wanted to be Ace too.

 

This was Zoe’s last chance.  Soon Mr. Ross would come back with his motorcycle and they would leave and she wouldn’t see them again.  She wouldn’t see Father Time again.  She knew Mommy would be mad, but she ran up to them, holding out his umbrella.  He looked surprised.  Maybe he’d thought she’d obey Mommy and not come over.

 

He took the umbrella and she asked him, “Are you coming back?”

 

He looked out into the distance.  Maybe it was like he said, and time was a map and he could see all the pages where she couldn’t.  Maybe he was reading the future on that map.  “I don’t know, Zoe.  I don’t think so.”

 

“Then take me with you,” she said.  This was the biggest decision of her young life, but traveling through the universe wasn’t something a little girl like her was going to miss. 

 

Father Time put a hand on her shoulder like he’d done with Ace, and he looked at her like she was important too.  Then he said, “I can’t.”

 

Zoe tried not to cry, because she knew if he left, she’d never see him again.  Father Time was like that.  “Why?” she asked.

 

“Because you’re so young.  Because you have a mother who really does love you, and would miss you terribly.”

 

“But she thinks you’re bad!”

 

He looked away, back at his invisible map of time.  “Maybe she’s right,” he said.

 

“No,” Zoe said.

 

“She’s not,” Ace said. 

 

Then Mommy was running up, taking Zoe’s hand.  “Come on, Zoe,” she said.  “We’ve got to get on the next bus.”

 

“You’re still taking the bus?” Father Time asked.

 

“Not much choice,” she said. 

 

Father Time dug into a bucket that had all his stuff and pulled out a bag that jingled.  Zoe wondered if he was going to juggle again, but he got a wad of bills out instead.  They were all funny looking, but he pulled out some dollars, too.  A lot of hundreds.

 

“Here,” he said, giving them to Mommy.

 

“I don’t want your money,” she said.  She was still mad at him, still scared.  Zoe looked between them.

 

“It’s for her,” he said, nodding at Zoe.  “I’m not sure how much this is, all your money looks the same to me.  It should be enough for some tickets and a bit of rent wherever you go. Take her on a plane.  Let her see the Earth as small for just a while.”

 

Mommy put the money in her pocket and was maybe going to cry.  She was still mad, but he’d done a good thing, and Mommy was confused.  She said, “I really really wanted to . . . I wanted . . . thanks.  You know, for the money.”  She took Zoe’s hand and started pulling her away.  Zoe turned and watched Father Time.  He waved at her, looking sad.  She waved back, hard as she could.  She waved while Mr. Ross came back and Ace climbed on the motorcycle, tossing her hair and looking as important as Father Time thought she was.  Zoe hoped she looked like Ace when she grew up.  Maybe in their new home, she’d say that her name was Ace and she’d find a skirt and boots like Ace’s. 

 

She waved while Mommy got the baby and the motorcycle drove away.  Zoe’s arm got tired and so she just stared.  She stared until Father Time and Ace were long gone. 

 

And when she got on an airplane bound for Alaska, she saw a world shrunk and hidden behind clouds, and she thought about Father Time and Ace in his spaceship and wondered if this was what they saw.


End file.
